


Yes Or No

by romana2525



Series: Five Times Jane Was Maura's Plus One [3]
Category: Rizzoli & Isles
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-10
Updated: 2011-06-10
Packaged: 2017-10-20 07:09:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/210084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/romana2525/pseuds/romana2525
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jane and Maura play a game of twenty questions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Yes Or No

**Author's Note:**

> TITLE: Yes or No  
> PART: 1/1  
> SERIES: Five Times Jane Was Maura's Plus One, Part 3/5  
> AUTHOR: romana2525 (romana2525@gmail.com)  
> FANDOM: Rizzoli & Isles  
> PAIRING: Jane/Maura (pre-slash)  
> RATING: PG  
> SPOILERS: All of first season  
> THANKS: Big thanks to anthro06 for beta reading. All mistakes are mine, all mine.  
> DISCLAIMER: I don’t own them. They belong to Tess Gerritsen and TNT.  
> SUMMARY: Jane and Maura play twenty questions.  
> COMMENT1: Third in a series. Another one in this series that completely took on a life of its own as I was writing it, and it ended up being fairly different from what I had in my head.  
> COMMENT2: These are all loosely-connected one-shots. They are all more or less stand alone stories, but it is best to read them in order. Comments and constructive criticisms are always appreciated.

"Jane?" Maura Isles entered the bullpen, the sound of her heels tapping loudly on the floor. "It's nearly six. I told Lis we'd be there by seven."

"You know I don't like surprises, Maura. Why don't you just tell me where we're going tonight?"

"Because you’ll just say you don’t want to go," Maura said, bluntly.

"Well, that just makes me all excited to go, now!" Jane said sarcastically, waving her arms. "I'll just get my coat!"

"Good," Maura said, with a bright smile.

Jane thought about explaining how she was being sarcastic, and that if Maura didn't think she wanted to go if she knew, then Jane was positive she didn't want to go. But then Maura was smiling that smile, and Jane felt her resolve crumble. How did she do that, Jane wondered.

"Fine, fine," she grumbled. "I'm coming. But let's stop on the way for some food. I'm starving."

"They'll have wine and hors d'oeuvres there," Maura informed her as Jane shrugged into her blazer.

"What?" Jane asked her, frowning. "Am I dressed okay for this?"

"Not really," Maura said as they walked to the elevator.

"Well, then maybe we shouldn't go," Jane tried again. Maura just glared at her.

Jane would never admit it to Maura, but there were times when the directness of the other woman was definitely off-putting. Still, Jane told herself, she had asked, and her mother always told her not to ask questions she didn't want the answers to. Maura was the living, breathing personification of that adage, Jane thought. But that gave her an idea, Jane thought, deciding to throw caution to the wind.

"All right, we're going to play twenty questions about where we're going."

"What?" Maura asked. "No, you'll see when we get there."

"Twenty questions, or I go back upstairs and finish my paperwork, Maura," Jane said playfully. She'd never do it, of course, but sometimes it was fun to tease.

"You're being ridiculous, Jane," Maura said, but Jane saw a smile creep across her face as they headed toward Maura's car. "What are the rules?"

"I ask you questions, you answer them," Jane said with a shrug. "Simple, huh?"

"There have to be more rules than that. What if you ask me where we’re going? I already said it was a surprise, so this game would defeat the purpose."

"They have to be yes or no questions," Jane informed her. Sometimes Jane forgot that there were weird gaps in Maura's knowledge base.

"See, you didn't tell me that. That's an important rule, Jane."

"My bad," Jane said, rolling her eyes. "OK, first question. Is this a party?"

Maura pulled out of the parking garage, and merged with evening traffic. "No," she said.

Not a party, but booze and snacks, this was interesting.

"Is it a concert?"

"No."

Jane was tempted to suggest that Maura was simply taking her out to dinner. But that didn't make any sense. They went out to dinner all the time, there was no reason for the secrecy.

"How many people will be there?" Jane asked.

"You said yes or no answers," Maura said quickly.

"Fine, fine. Will there be more than...fifteen people there?"

"No," Maura said again.

"More than five?"

Maura thought for a minute. "Yes."

"Does this have something to do with the exhibit you're taking me to on Sunday?"

Maura pursed her lips, annoyed. "Yes."

Jane was getting closer. All right, she mentally ticked off the clues she had so far in her head. Around ten people, food and wine, not a concert or a party. But it did have something to do with the gallery thing on Sunday.

"Will we be looking at things?" Jane asked. Jane noted that they'd left the downtown area and were headed toward one of the more exclusive areas of Boston.

"Yes," Maura said.

Well, it wouldn't be a gallery thing, since they were already doing that. A horrible thought struck her.  
"Is it a lecture?" The last thing she wanted was to sit through an evening of boring lectures on art history, and the peak shift phenomenon, whatever the hell that was.

"No," Maura said with a chuckle at Jane's tone of voice. "But the Metropolitan Museum of Art does have a wonderful lecture series. We should attend one sometime," Maura added.

Jane breathed a sigh of relief, then glanced guiltily over at Maura. "Uh, sure... Let's see," she continued. "Is it something for charity?"

"No," Maura said.

Jane was beginning to get frustrated. Maura simply looked amused. "Is it in someone's house?"

"No."

"Is it in a store?"

"No, and you've used up half your questions."

"Jeez, throw me a lifeline or something here," Jane grumbled. "Is it outside?"

"No. You aren't very good at this game," Maura observed, smiling.

Jane made a face at her. "Is it expensive?"

"Hmmm..." Maura frowned.

"What? Is it expensive, yes or no?"

"Is 'maybe' permitted as an answer?"

"Yes or no," Jane said, firmly. She was being petty, but she also wanted to get back at Maura for that crack about not being good at this. Besides, it wasn't like Maura knew the rules.

"Yes or no," Maura said.

"Yes or no?" Jane asked. "Which one?"

"Both, since you said maybe isn't allowed."

"You can't answer both," Jane said.

"It could reasonably be either one of those two choices. I think my answer is perfectly consistent with the rules you specified."

"It has to be one or the other," Jane admonished her. "You can't just change the rules mid-game."

"Then you'll have to rephrase the question," Maura said. "I can't answer it as it presently stands."

"Maura!" Jane said, exasperated.

"And, I wasn't changing the rules mid-game," Maura added. "That was another rule you neglected to inform me of before we started."

"Will you spend more than a hundred dollars?" Jane growled.

"Jane, that's no better than the first question. I can't answer that one either."

Jane drew a deep breath and willed herself to be calm. This was hardly something worth fighting over. Besides, she'd started it. "Is it possible you could spend more than a hundred dollars tonight?"  
Maura breathed a sigh of relief. "Yes," she said.

"More than a thousand?" Jane felt a little nosy, but she knew for a fact that Maura sometimes paid that much for a pair of shoes.

"Yes."

"Are we going to be looking at art"

"Yes."

"Art by Emily Cecile?"

"No."

"Work by a different artist, then?"

"Yes. Two questions left."

"I don't need them," Jane said, confident that they were going to an art gallery of some sort. Maura probably wanted her to practice the etiquette of looking at paintings before Sunday. "And wait, what do you mean two more questions? I have four left."

Maura shook her head. "Two."

"Four," Jane countered. "The two I asked that you said you couldn't answer don't count."

"Why wouldn't they count?" Maura asked. "With that rule, you could ask improperly formatted questions as a means of fact finding, without wasting any of your twenty questions. It hardly seems fair."

"Well, you know what, Maura," Jane said. "I don't even need my last four questions because I know what we're doing tonight, and you were right, I don't want to."

"Is that so?" Maura said. "What are we doing then, Jane?"

"You're taking me to some hoitey toitey gallery somewhere so I can practice not embarrassing you on Sunday," Jane said.

Maura pulled into a reserved parking space in front of a brightly lit, two story glass fronted building. She turned the car off, and burst out laughing at Jane. "We're here," Maura said. "And you got it completely wrong. What do I win?"

“A lifetime supply of Rice-a-Roni,” Jane deadpanned as she opened the car door and looked up at the building. She could see warm colors, and polished hardwood floors, but no works of art other than a few hanging on the wall that we're obviously just part of the decor. The sign on the door read "Lis Couture." "Hey, you lied," Jane said, pointing a finger at Maura over the roof of the car.

"Jane, you know I'm incapable of lying," Maura said, still laughing.

"You said we weren't going to a store." Jane pointed to the sign on the front.

"It's a private boutique, not a store," Maura said, making a face at her. "Come on, Lis is expecting us."

"Semantics, Maura," Jane said. "This is your big secret? Shopping? Really?"

"Not just shopping," Maura said, a gleam in her eye. "Lis invited me to a exclusive private showing of her spring line. You are my guest."

Maura looked so happy that Jane found herself grinning back at her. She also had to admit she was kind of intrigued, even though she really shouldn’t be. She hated shopping. "So, what? We get to go in and look through her stuff after hours?" Was this how rich people shopped for clothes, Jane wondered.

"Even better," Maura said. "They're going to model everything for us."

"And we just sit and watch, and enjoy the champagne and caviar?" She tried to be sarcastic, but couldn't hide the fact that the idea appealed to her, even if everything in this place was way out of her price range.

"Exactly," Maura said with a grin, ushering Jane inside.

The End


End file.
